“Let me come with you,” he said softly. “You can lecture me some more. I’ll even listen.”

“I love you more,” Annabelle said, and brought her mouth to his. She felt a surge of exquisite pleasure, accompanied by the elusive sense of completeness, of perfect fulfillment, that they had never quite reached before. She was floating in warmth, as if her soul was bathed in light. Drawing back, she saw from the stunned brilliance in Simon’s gaze

Crying out, she hurried to the long, fallen form. It was Simon, alive and conscious, his leg trapped beneath the steel shaft of a fallen crane. As he saw her, his soot-smeared face contorted with horror, and he struggled to a half-sitting position. “Annabelle,” he said hoarsely, pausing as he was wracked with coughing. “Dammit, no—get out of here!

“Damn,” Westcliff finally exclaimed. “I have occasional business dealings with their father. How am I supposed to face Thomas Bowman without remembering that I’ve seen his daughter in her underwear?”

It is one of my many failings, to love beautiful things so dearly.

“I mean that I will afflict the most acute kind of pain, mental, physical, and financial, on the first man who dares to trespass on my territory. And the next person who repeats any unsubstantiated rumors about Miss Peyton in my hearing will find it shoved right back in his throat—along with my fist.” Simon’s smile contained a tigerish menace as he

The passionate interest being shown to a man of Kendall’s timid demeanor proved that there was no aphrodisiac more effective than end-of-season bachelorhood.

“Mr. Hunt, you sound like the villain in a very bad play.” That elicited another grin, and he bowed with sardonic politeness before striding away.

“Dispense your words of wisdom, then, as it appears that I’m going to hear them whether I wish to or not.”